The week’s must-read? This: Documents show depth of U.S. concern over Mexico violence. As I’ve been saying for nearly a decade, border security is national security.
ARGENTINA
Argentina’s Fading Diva
“You can see light at the end of the tunnel,” Mr. Mariscal said, “but you don’t know if it’s the train coming towards you.”
BOLIVIA
Skulls said to have miraculous qualities at the center of annual festival in Bolivia
BRAZIL
Before Global Games, Rio Is Fighting to Dim Red Light. Good luck with that.
Brazil’s oil industry
Bustista
Eike Batista’s oil firm files for bankruptcy protection
COLOMBIA
In pictures: Beyond El Dorado at the British Museum
No pause in FARC peace talks for elections
CUBA
Michael Totten is Home From Cuba,
That is one truly strange place. It’s right there alongside Libya under Moammar Qaddafi in the bizarro department. I’m glad I went, but I’m even more glad to be out of there.
ECUADOR
Indigenous peoples
Death in the Amazon
Attempt to Rehabilitate Chevron Judge Gets Very Weird
Chevron’s lead lawyer, Randy Mastro, had some success this week showing that [Ecuadorian judge Nicolas] Zambrano doesn’t seem to know very much about the record-breaking decision he supposedly rendered. When asked, the former Ecuadorian judge couldn’t name key elements of the ruling, such as the most powerful carcinogenic substance it cited or a crucial scientific study purporting to link oil contamination to human illnesses. He also struggled to explain how he was able to deploy French, American, and Australian case law in the ruling, since, as he conceded, he does not speak or read French or English.
The Chevron RICO trial grinds on
Phila. lawyer tells how Ecuador case against Chevron unraveled
GRENADA
An Army Ranger Gives an on Ground Account of the War in Grenada
GUYANA
The US Treasury as the Birthright of All Mankind
JAMAICA
BBC criticised over Jamaica Inn filming in Kirkby Lonsdale
LATIN AMERICA
From Brookings: The Upcoming Electoral Cycle in Latin America in the Midst of Social Unrest: What Lies Ahead?
Documents show depth of U.S. concern over Mexico violence
NICARAGUA
Sandinista Constitutional reforms will institutionalize first lady’s precepts of ‘Christian, socialist and solidarity’ via Boz
- Increases government control over radio, television, telephone and internet services, including requirements for local control and data storage.
- Institutionalizes various FSLN organizations into the government and constitution, further merging the government and party (which would have serious repercussions if the FSLN did lose an election some day in the future, in that the party would still retain control over aspects of government).
PANAMA
Panama Canal’s LNG Surprise to Redefine Trade in Fuel: Freight
LNG carriers will cross the 48-mile waterway 350 times a year, and voyages to Asia from the U.S. will cost 24 percent less than longer routes, according to calculations from the canal authority. The expected 12 million tons, assuming half the transits are hauling cargoes, would be equal to about 5 percent of the world’s trade in 2012, Fearnley Consultants AS estimates.
The U.S., now the world’s largest producer of natural gas because of the extraction of fuel from shale rocks, will account for much of that traffic as it becomes the third-largest exporter of LNG by 2020, Morgan Stanley estimates. With American energy independence now at a 27-year high of 86 percent, the route will boost exports to Japan, offsetting nuclear-power generation lost after the earthquake and tsunami in March 2011.
PERU
Peru’s central bank sees gloomier economic growth
PUERTO RICO
De Blasio, in Puerto Rico, Finds Relaxation and Fellow Red Sox Fans
On Vacation, With Politics
Mayor-elect de Blasio Attends Somos El Futuro Conference in Puerto Rico
Is Puerto Rico the next Greece? Nest eggs could suffer
La Mallorquina, open since 1848, closed:
My grandparents used to take the family (of 12!) to eat there in the 1920s and ’30s.
VENEZUELA
Desperation News and Views
Miami Herald reporter held for second night in Venezuela while covering economic crisis; he was released on Saturday and is back in the USA.
Real life: Venezuela’s Maduro orders military occupation… of electronics stores
John Hinderaker watches the pageants and posts lots of pictures: MISS UNIVERSE: A FINAL PREVIEW [UPDATED WITH RESULTS]
The week’s posts and podcast:
Chile: Left turn coming up
Venezuela burns down Mexican plane
Obama makes campaign stop, meets Coco & Berta
Venezuela: Entire medical system collapsing
Latin America: Mexico and the Expanding Hemispheric Crime and Terror Crises
Colombia: Things are about to get worse
Cuba: The FARC rides the yacht
Podcast:
With Jerry Brewer on Silvio Canto’s podcast